


The Night Before

by Winterstar



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-08-09 19:43:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7814647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterstar/pseuds/Winterstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky has one wish before he goes under again...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Night Before

“I want you to promise me.”

The voice is low and sweet and fills the air with every longing and gentle dream Steve could ever imagine. It’s been years, maybe centuries, he doesn’t know nor does he count the seconds to oblivion, but now the voice is here. Next to him. 

“Come on.” A gentle shove to his shoulder and he should pay attention but he’s listening only to the dream and falling into the honeyed miasma of what could be. The haze falls over him like a veil or hood or a secret identity. It’s something he’s wished for and he doesn’t need to anymore – until tomorrow.

“Come on, Stevie, you gotta promise me.”

He stares into the dark night and he can see into it like he’s looking into the spirally arms of the Milky Way. He sees the stars and the hopes and the dreams of his youth as they dot the night shining brightly with so much to offer and not dying – not now, not like they used to all those many months since he woke in this strange century.

“Really, if you don’t listen to me I’m not going to kiss you goodbye.”

Of course, Bucky knows how to throw a barb. He’s been doing it for years, in the mean streets of Brooklyn, throughout their time as Howling Commandoes, and now he’s returned to it again. He’s shed the old persona and left it for dead. Or at least he will, when tomorrow comes and he subjects himself to the cold of going under again.

The threat is good enough though to get Steve to draw his attention back to Bucky. They lie entwined, in each other’s arms, a wish fulfilled. Bucky’s metal arm is gone of course, blown away. The scientists and medical staff in Wakanda closed the circuits so that Bucky wasn’t tormented anymore by the electrical shorts. His flesh arm wraps around Steve’s torso, he’s lying on Steve’s chest. They are spent and happy – the room smells vaguely of jasmine and musk. It didn’t used to be this way, when they were younger. Bucky never laid on Steve’s chest. It had almost always been the opposite. Steve’s small, thin body supported by Bucky’s and now they circle around and share the role.

Except Bucky isn’t quite ready to give up his stronger, more protective role. He never was. Even in the pitch of the fight, Steve always knew what Bucky’s true mission was. Yes, Steve had been his mission, once long ago and always will be Bucky’s mission. For the truth stands out like the moon on the cloudless night. Bucky’s one true mission will always been protecting Steve.

Steve would like to forget what’s coming, what’s happened: the past and the future. “What do you want? Can we just lie here and enjoy?”

Bucky shifts around and he can’t hoist himself up because he’s missing the left arm. Instead, he settles for sitting on his legs and hovering over Steve. The light from the window shines over him. He looks well, healthy, not as if he’s just been beaten and almost killed. Steve shudders away from the memories. He never dreamed that Tony would fall into such a pit, that Tony would allow the curse of vengeance to consume him. Steve understands that feeling – he’s been there before with Bucky so many years ago. Decades.

“I don’t think we can just ignore the facts anymore,” Bucky says. “Especially since tomorrow-.”

Steve raises his hand and places a finger on Bucky’s lips – those sweet lips that tantalize and taste. He wants more of them, he wants more days and nights. But this is all they have left. He gave up everything for a single moment in time. 

No, that’s not true. He gave up everything for his love and to save him. He knows deep in his heart he did the right thing. He couldn’t let Tony kill Bucky – regardless of what he’d done. Bucky wasn’t guilty of those crimes, Hydra was. In time, Steve knows Tony will see that, but then again Steve feared what would happen if he revealed to Tony what he suspected about Hydra and his parents. So who really knows if Tony would have felt any regret at all for killing Bucky.

He knows there’s an all-out manhunt for both of them. That it hasn’t abated and that Tony will be coming after him – soon. 

“I don’t want to talk about tomorrow,” Steve says. Like he did with the information on Hydra and Tony’s parents, Steve plans to willfully ignore what’s about to happen. He refuses to think about how he will manage his life – alone and without Bucky. 

“We need to,” Bucky says and he reaches out to touch Steve’s swollen and bruised cheek. It had been fractured – otherwise the serum would have already repaired it. The damage had been deep and complex – not a simple hairline but an honest to God fracture of the bone. It hurt like hell at first, now not as much. Bucky caresses his cheek and then drops his hand to Steve’s broad and bare chest. “We need to because I don’t ever want to hear you say that again.”

This perplexes Steve. He furrows his brow and frowns. “What? That I love you. I think that’s not a surprise.” Before, in the late 30s and early 40s they’d been secretive about it. But in Steve’s flat they’d been free to be themselves and would often say it to one another – before, during, and after making love. 

“Not that, you punk.”

He sighs because he knows where Bucky’s going now. It isn’t hard to follow his logic and every minute of every day he spends with Bucky it seems as if the man grows more into the image Steve remembers. It is as if Steve is a catalyst for Bucky shedding the skin of the Winter Soldier and becoming Bucky Barnes again.

“You can’t tell me not to-.”

“Sure I can,” Bucky says. “I don’t want to know I’m going under and that you’re going to pull that crap again.”

“It’s not like you can stop me,” Steve says and he’s playing with Bucky, but just the look on his face tells Steve to can it. He does. He shuts up.

Bucky holds his hand over Steve’s heart. “Don’t let me know you’re going to do it, say it again.”

“Buck.”

“Steve, no. No more ‘I can do this all day’. I saw what it did to you. I watched it for years and years before and now, now when he threatened you with that blast thing, that took off my goddamned arm – you still said – I can do this all day. You didn’t back down.”

“Sometimes, I can’t back down Bucky. He would have killed you.”

“He would have killed you if-.”

“If you hadn’t stopped him,” Steve says and tries not to let the memory of Tony kicking Bucky in the face replay in his head. He fails. Everything falls apart. Nothing stays the same. There is no happily ever after. There never could be.

“Please, promise me Steve,” Bucky says and he sinks down again, next to Steve in his arms. “Please.”

“I don’t know if I can do that,” Steve says because he knows he still has work to do. According to the information T’Challa gathered, his friends have been locked away in a mid-ocean prison called the Raft. He has to free them before he can think about doing anything else. He doesn’t want to think beyond that – it’s hard enough thinking beyond tomorrow morning.

“You have to,” Bucky says. “I’m asking you.”

“Ask away.” He tries for light but it falls flat and hard.

A moment of peace passes between them and Steve thinks he can hear the subtle sounds of the jungle outside their suite in the palace. Bucky only nuzzles close to his throat and kisses him with a tender touch. 

“You have to do this for me,” Bucky whispers. Any levity has drained away into the darkness of the night.

“I really don’t.” A second attempt at levity fails again.

“Yeah, you do,” Bucky says. Steve turns to face Bucky and he kisses him thoroughly and completely like they used to kiss in the old tenement apartment Steve used to rent in Brooklyn. When he breaks away, Steve focuses on Bucky’s expression and knows deep in the pit of his stomach – he’s going to ask the impossible. 

“Stand down, Steve, stand down.”

“I have to get Sam and the rest out of that prison that T’Challa talked about,” Steve says. He’s trying to deflect. It’s not working.

“After then,” Bucky pleads. “Stand down.”

“I can’t.”

“Do it for me,” Bucky asks. “My last request.”

And there it is. It shoots a hole soundly through Steve’s chest as if it might be a javelin. It goes through him, tugging away, ripping away his heart and leaves him cold and lonely and empty. He believes he can see the gaping hole.

“Promise me.”

He swallows down the tears because he doesn’t want this night to descend into sorrow. He only nods his head and keeps his eyes focused in the night. He can live in these moments forever. He can live out the rest of his life in these few short hours. It’s all he has left – the night before -.

THE END.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for thegraytigress for the quick edit!


End file.
